Alabama Department of Archives and History

This Week in Alabama History

November 8 - November 14

Featured Event:

Sam Dale, Jeremiah Austill, and James Smith become frontier heroes in a Creek War episode on the Alabama River known as The Canoe Fight. From their canoe, paddled by a black man named Caesar, the three Americans engaged a large canoe carrying nine Creek warriors. As militiamen and Indians watched from opposite sides of the river, Dale, Austill, and Smith killed the nine warriors in hand-to-hand combat.

Other Events this Week

Southern Airways Flight 49 is hijacked on a flight from Birmingham to Montgomery. Three armed men wanted by Detroit police demanded a $10 million ransom while diverting the plane from one airport to another in the United States, Canada, and Cuba, where the ordeal ended thirty hours after it began. The hijacking resulted in heightened security measures at American airports, including required use of metal detectors.

Listen: Click the play button below to hear Archives Staff discuss this event on Alabama Public Radio.

Alabama's 1901 Constitution is ratified by statewide vote in an election fraught with corruption. Following the trend of other southern states in this period, Alabama used the constitution to effectively disfranchise blacks and poor whites. With hundreds of amendments, the 1901 Constitution carries the distinction of being twice as long as the constitution of any other state.

In a spectacle seen across the Southeast, a fantastic meteor shower causes this night to be known as “the night stars fell on Alabama.” The shower created such great excitement across the state that it became a part of Alabama folklore and for years was used to date events. A century later it inspired a song and book, and in 2002 the state put the phrase "Stars Fell on Alabama" on its license plates.